Edinburgh Castle was a disappointment. Maybe because I was tired or maybe because I was fretting about the laundry (which did get done by the way. Woot!) it just wasn't all that.

The castle, as you probably know, has a street up to it on one side while the other side perches on a black crag. It is very intimidating, much more so than the Tower, especially if you approach from the crag side as we did.

There's a big flat area in front that looked like it was normally a coach park. When we were there they were setting up the stands for the Tattoo so there was quite the traffic jam on the High Street (or Royal Mile, maybe both. Whichever goes up to the Castle)

The disappointment was inside. The exhibits were lackluster and scanty on actual artificacts. I did see the Honors (Scottish crown jewels) which involved a brisk walk through a museum than consisted solely of dioramas of important events concerning the Honors.

I also did an exhibit on prisoners of war that tried to give you the feel for what it was like for the POWs in the Castle in 1781. Also scanty on artifacts but it did have one nifty exhibit, three doors that prisoners had carved graffitti into with an explication of selected carvings.

Gift shops abounded but they seemed to mostly sell "Wow! You are in Scotland now!" stuff rather than items specific to the Castle.

So, long story short, it didn't send me but maybe I was just stressed and tired.

We went off to find Chinese for dinner. After a few missteps we end up at an intersection with a Chinese restaurant on every corner. We opted for the one that appeared to be named 'The Rainbow Argh'.

We walked in and I saw that maybe 10% to 20% of the patrons were not Asian. I wasn't sure if this was a good sign because I didn't want my food too authentic. It was pretty darn tasty.

I had difficulty understanding their furrin lingo. 'Starter' I understand but when it's spoken with a thick accent (Cantonese? Scots/Cantonese? who knows?) and my brain is trying to parse it to 'appetizer', I don't understand.

MD and I are fond of 'onion cake' AKA 'scallion pancake'. They had it. It was a bit different from what we were used to which seems to be mainly onions/scallions fried into a pancake shape. It is an ideal vehicle for hot chilli oil. At the Argh, it had a noticeable amount of flour, resembled a sweet roll in appearance and actaully was a bit sweet. I liked it!We managed to get on the road this morning at 7:30, as we planned. However, there were a few wrong turns so it took us an hour to get out of the city. We were aiming for a 1:15 ferry from Scrabster at the north end of Scotland.

Between twisty roads and old people in pedal cars, it looked like we wouldn't make it. There is a later ferry but it is several hours later. We went to plan B. We went for the 1:45 ferry from Gills Bay. Made it with 5 minutes to spare though, apparently, pilgham's heart was in his mouth at times. In my defence, it must be stated that the posted limit on the narrow country roads was 60mph which I only exceeded when passing.

Crossing was uneventful. Drove across 3 or 4 islands to get to Mainland, where Kirkwall is. There was a dead ship at the first causeway.

Hotel rooms are nicer than Bath but no internet.

Edinburgh Castle, the back of the barracks and regimental museums, from below.

Intimidating look up at the Castle.

Queuing for admission. The woman in the blue jacket at the left is me. MD is next to me in the red jacket.

pilgham at Foog's Gate. MD claims this is evidence of some proto-Noko.

What a jolly castle. My whole thing was Holyrood house in Mary's bedroom and up and down in search of the Kirk O' Field house site. I am sorry to say that the infamous murder staircase has been closed up and The exploded house didn't even have a keg of gunpowder to commemorate it. Very unenterprising of those Scots as I wanted to look for blood stains.

The Scots perchance are wary of putting anything decent on display in case the Sassenatch swipe it for the British Museum?

Mons Meg's balls are very impressive. Doesn't 'mons' mean 'mount'? Um, maybe don't go there...*sheepish grin* 'Mons' is probably a corruption of some French word, but what it might be, I'm not hazarding a guess!

I was wondering if you'd explain the proto-noko joke though. Blame it on the fact that I've been so busy this week. I've been away doing last minute flashfic of course (and *someone* wasn't here to beta - I can't do anything without you!) and Anna has a big todo birthday party coming up tomorrow. I'm doing the favors for twenty (!!!) tonight.

I liked the pictures of the hamlet and little fields. So pretty. Was Edinburg as picturesque as it looked? That view of all the spires and multi-colored roofs was lovely.